Yesterday, the Port of Koper welcomed the M/V Neptune Koper, a ship named so by the shipowner Neptune Lines in the Port of Piraeus only a few days ago. As the largest ship in the fleet of the Greek shipowner, the Neptune Koper is a specialised vessel, namely a ro-ro ship designated to carry wheeled cargo. According to Neptune Lines, the decision to name the ship after Koper was based on its excellent cooperation with the Port of Koper: “With this name, we wish to honour our long-term cooperation with the Port of Koper and our valuable partnership with its employees, which, we hope, will also continue in the future. We welcome the M/V Neptune Koper into our family and wish her fair winds and following seas!” said Melina Travlos, Neptune Lines president and CEO, on the ceremonial arrival of the ship which was recently conferred a new name.
At the reception on the Neptune Koper’s first arrival in the Port of Koper, Dimitrij Zadel, president of the management board of Luka Koper, handed over a graphic work of the image of Koper to the ship’s captain, Sergiy Osipyan. The event was also attended by Aleš Bržan, the mayor of Koper, who welcomed the Neptune Koper as the only cargo ship that would carry the name of the Slovene port across the Mediterranean after that the shipowner Splošna plovba sold its bulk carrier Koper in 2012. More precisely, the ship will be involved in the transportation of wheeled cargo between Koper and the Turkish ports and will be present in Koper every second week. “The ship’s renaming to Koper is a great honour for us and a confirmation of our good business relationship with the owner, who carries almost one half of our annual throughput of vehicles. Last year, despite the epidemic, we handled more than 617,000 vehicles and with this result, we considerably overtook the two largest car ports on the European side of the Mediterranean, namely Barcelona and Valencia,” Zadel pointed out,also expressing his expectations that vehicle throughput would grow in the future mainly due to the port’s increasing capacities. To satisfy the requirements of the Car Terminal, a new berth (where the Neptune Koper is moored) was built last year by the Port of Koper, along with the railway lines in the hinterland of Basin III. In addition, in the first half of this year, the Port of Koper will finalise the construction of a new garage with 6,000 parking spaces.
About the ship
The ship was built in 2004. After being hired by Neptune Lines and included in its service in 2016, it used to come to the Port of Koper under the name Nocc Kattegat. The ship will continue to operate on Neptune Lines’ regular service on the Koper-Derince-Yenikoy-Borusan-Piraeus route. It is registered under the Maltese flag.
Carrying capacity: 5,380 vehicles
Length: 197 m
Beam: 30 m
Draft: 7.1 m
DWT: 14,520 t
Max. sailing speed: 17.2 knots
